Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,23
having to do it for her about half the time.”
When Dennis smiled again, Abby noticed one of his front teeth was chipped. She imagined there were fights in his line of work, men hitting each other. She looked away. “Nick says it’s fine with him if she wants to cut it short. Almost anything she does is fine with him.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You think they’re dead, don’t you?”
Dennis rubbed two fingers near the center of his forehead.
Abby began unwinding long hairs from the bristles of Lindsey’s brush, seeing them through the prism of her unshed tears. She tucked them into the envelope Dennis held open.
He bent to label it. “Of all the things in the world that are hard,” he said, keeping his eye on what he was doing, “not knowing is the worst. I want to find your husband and daughter, Mrs. Bennett, and I’m going to do everything I can to accomplish that. So will my deputies. I want you to know that.”
She brought her hands to her face. He plucked a tissue from the box on the vanity and gave it to her. And he waited for her to mop up and blow her nose as if he had all the time in the world, as if he had been born to wait through a woman’s tears.
“I guess you’re used to hysterics.”
“I don’t like this part of the job, ma’am. I never get used to it.”
“Abby, please. Ma’am is what my students called me.”
“You teach school?”
“I did. I’ve been thinking of going back.”
“What grade?”
“Kindergarten for a while and then second grade.”
“Man.” Dennis grinned. “Of all the years I was in school, through college, the academy, you name it, my kindergarten teacher is the one I remember. Miss Sneed. She taught me to read. Taught me to tie my shoes. I thought when I grew up, I was going to marry her.”
Abby said, “I thought all little boys wanted to marry their mothers.”
“I never knew mine,” Dennis said. “She and my dad were killed in a bus accident right after I was born.”
Instinctively, Abby reached out, touched his wrist, murmured regret.
“It’s all right,” Dennis said.
Abby led the way into the hall. The bedroom she and Nick shared was to her left, but she hesitated, reluctant to go into that room with Dennis. She said Nick only had one hairbrush, and she didn’t think he would have left it behind. “Is there something else that will work?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Abby.”
“Abby,” he repeated.
He kept her gaze, and her face heated as she took his meaning, the nature of the “something else” that would suffice. “We didn’t.” She caught her upper arms in a tight clasp.
Dennis was quiet. Abby stared at the floor. An awkward silence was measured in heartbeats, then Abby had an idea. “Nick cut himself shaving that morning badly enough that he put a bit of tissue on it. I couldn’t find a Band-Aid. He was annoyed.”
“You think you still have it? The tissue?”
“Downstairs.” Abby led the way back to the kitchen. “I emptied the wastebaskets from up here into a bag, but I didn’t take it out yet.”
The scrap wasn’t much, and it was weeks old, but Dennis said it was fine. He said, “We have dental records, too.” He repacked his case and they walked to the front door and out onto the porch. Abby thought of telling him about the phone call. She thought of saying that she believed it came from her daughter, but he would only think of her what everyone else did, that she was losing it, and maybe they were right. Maybe she was.
He paused at the foot of the front steps. “You have a real pretty place here,” he said, “a nice home.”
Abby nodded, and in his quiet presence, she felt somehow comforted. It was almost as if he held her within an embrace.
* * *
After Dennis Henderson left, Abby went upstairs and made herself go through Nick’s closet and his dresser drawers. She wasn’t certain what she was looking for. A confession of lies? A map to his destination with his reason for going there clearly stated? A diary exposing his thoughts? Given his penchant for privacy, she had little hope of finding anything, and she didn’t. Not on his closet shelves, nor tucked into the pockets of his suit coats or slacks. There was nothing in his bureau drawers but the socks and underwear she herself had washed and folded dozens of times.